Henri-Alexandre Junod is one of the greatest ethnographers of his day, one of the primary methodological inspirations behind the school of social anthropology that developed in southern Africa after Radcliffe-Brown’s passage through Cape Town in the 1920’s. Junod’s ethnography is present in practically all of the great comparative texts that marked mid-twentieth century anthropology. In 1962 (Essays on the Ritual of Social Relations, p. 9), Max Gluckman speaks of the “persisting excitement of Junod” and I believe many anthropologists and African historians today would still uphold that view. They are all referring, of course, to his classical oeuvre The Life of a South African Tribe because little else is known of Junod’s writings. Zidji was a book that he wrote just as he was finishing proof reading his great monograph. He felt it was necessary to present not only the facts of the past (as he conceived ehtnography), but also a fuller view of what life was like for a Tsonga of his day. For that, he took recourse to the novel format. This is a work of exceptional quality that, as a reviewer point out in 1910, is fascinating reading even though it can hardly be recommended to children. A century later, this practically unknown masterpiece continues to be easy to read and deeply informative. It presents the reader with all sorts of dilemmas that its author perceived but refused to resolve in view of his deep engagement in the missionary task.

João de Pina-Cabral
Institute of Social Sciences
University of Lisbon